24/7 Chairs

A 24-hour chair is engineered for continuous multi-shift use, which is a fundamentally different requirement from a chair used seven hours a day by one person. Control rooms, dispatch centres, security operations and emergency services need seating that holds up to constant occupancy by operators of different builds.

Chair Dinkum is the exclusive Australian distributor for the Flokk group, which owns RH. The RH chairs in this collection — including the Secur24 — come through us in Australia, as do their spare parts, their test documentation and their warranty assessment, which is handled here in Sydney rather than routed offshore. More on the group and its eleven brands at Flokk Australia.

What actually differs in a 24/7-rated chair

The differences are in the components rather than the appearance. Four things separate a genuine 24/7 chair from a good task chair.

• Gas lift and mechanism cycle testing. A chair occupied around the clock sees three times the sit-downs, height changes and recline cycles of a single-shift chair. Heavy-duty 24/7 models use reinforced mechanisms and heavier gas cylinders for that reason. The RH Secur24 (sold as the BMA Secur24 before BMA Ergonomics merged into RH in January 2025) has an extra-strong steel-structure mechanism and an oversized 710 mm base; the Control Master 24/7 uses a six-star aluminium base and a full steel inner frame to both seat and back.
• Weight rating. This is the number tender documents most often omit and the one that most often causes a warranty argument later. Published ratings across this collection range widely, higher price does not predict a higher rating, and a maximum static load is not the same measurement as a certified maximum user weight.
• Upholstery abrasion resistance. Continuous occupancy wears fabric at the front seat edge and the backrest shoulder line first. The Control Master is supplied in Gabriel Fighter, a heavy-duty commercial fabric, or in black leather. On RH chairs, check that the fabric is an RH approved 24/7 fabric, because upholstery outside that list falls outside the warranty.
• Cleanability. A chair handed between operators every eight hours has to tolerate repeated wipe-down. Ask what cleaning agents the supplier permits before you write a cleaning protocol around a chair, because solvent damage is not a warranty claim.

The question nobody asks: how many hours a day does the warranty cover?

This is the sharpest test of a supplier, and most cannot answer it.

Flokk warrants HAG chairs for 10 years in normal use up to 9 hours per day. Beyond 9 hours per day, the term is 5 years. Fabrics and leather are covered for 5 years either way. A HAG chair specified into a rotating 24-hour roster is therefore covered for half the headline term from the day it is installed. Nothing is wrong with the chair and nothing is hidden in the warranty; the problem is that the headline number gets quoted in a tender response and the hours clause does not.

RH, also part of Flokk, publishes the same two-term structure at a different limit. The RH standard term is 10 years, normal use up to 9 hours per day, users up to 150 kg. Separately, Flokk states that it “provides a 5 year warranty for RH chairs that are approved for control room 24/7 use”, and the RH Secur24 is one of those chairs — so it carries 5 years. Flokk also states that upholstery is not covered under these terms unless it is an RH approved 24/7 fabric. Read the two terms together rather than treating 10 as the better number: a 5-year term written for round-the-clock duty and a 10-year term that steps down past 9 hours per day are not directly comparable.

Ask every supplier the same question in writing: what does your warranty say about hours of use per day, and what is the term at 24-hour occupancy? Put the answer in the evaluation matrix.

Warranty and rating spread across this collection

One clarification on the Secur24 figure, because it is the one buyers query most. 234 kg is a genuine published specification from the product’s own manufacturer literature, stated as “Maximum (static) load 234 kg” in the Secur24 Basic and Secur24 Exclusive product flyers and in the 24/7 range brochure. It is a maximum static load, not a certified maximum user weight tested to ANSI/BIFMA X5.1. RH separately publishes a general maximum user weight of 150 kg across its range, and does not currently publish a Secur24-specific certified user weight. Those are two different measurements rather than a contradiction, but they are not interchangeable — so if a rated capacity is a mandatory requirement in your specification, contact Chair Dinkum and, as Flokk’s Australian distributor, we will confirm the current certified figure for your application directly with Flokk before you submit.

Specifying for a control room

Points worth writing into the specification rather than leaving to the supplier’s discretion:

• Minimum weight rating, stated in kilograms, with the standard it was tested to and whether you mean user weight or static load. ANSI/BIFMA X5.1 and EN 1335 are the two in play; the Secur24 is listed with EN 1335, GS and BS 5459-2 — the British standard for heavy-duty and 24-hour office seating — while the RH Mereo range cites both EN 1335 and ANSI/BIFMA.
• Warranty term at your actual hours of occupancy, not the headline term.
• Cycle test evidence for the gas lift and tilt mechanism, and whether the supplier can produce the test report rather than a marketing summary of it.
• Upholstery abrasion rating (Martindale or Wyzenbeek, whichever the mill publishes) and the approved cleaning method.
• Headrest where operators monitor screens for extended periods without leaving the chair.
• Adjustment range across the roster. Three operators of different builds share one chair in 24 hours, so seat height and seat depth range matter more here than in a single-user office.
• Whether test documentation can be supplied at all. Make this an explicit tender question. It separates suppliers quickly.

We can supply test documentation where the manufacturer provides it — and for the Flokk brands, as Australian distributor, we source it directly from Flokk — and we quote on volume for fit-outs. Full warranty terms for every brand we carry are set out at our warranty page. If you are still scoping, browse all ergonomic task chairs or contact us with your roster pattern, operator size range and cleaning regime and we will tell you which of these three fits — and where the answer is that none of them does.

Guides and buying advice

Written for people specifying seating rather than buying a single chair.

• Specifying 24/7 control room chairs in Australia
• Do you really need a 24/7 control room chair?
• Office chair weight ratings in Australia: what they mean and who certifies them
• Office chairs for tall people in Australia: a fit guide
• Fabric, mesh and leather compared
• How to choose office chairs for a small team

Related ranges

• RH Secur24 and the RH New Logic 220 — both RH, and both part of the Norwegian Flokk group.
• HAG chairs and the HAG Tion range — also Flokk, for single-shift office use.
• Executive chairs and monitor arms for the rest of the workstation.
• Commercial fit-outs — volume quoting, test documentation and tender support.